sanctions

South Korea overtakes China as ASML’s largest market. Sanctions are already changing the world

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In the first quarter of 2026, South Korea has accounted for 45% of ASML salesthe Dutch manufacturer of lithography machinery without which no advanced chip exists. China, which until now led the same ranking with 36%, has fallen to 19%. The order of the semiconductor world has been inverted in the duration of a ‘Q’. Why is it important. ASML is the only company on the planet capable of manufacturing extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machinesessential to produce chips less than 7 nanometers. Whoever controls access to ASML controls, to a large extent, which countries can manufacture elite semiconductors. That is why the figures for the first quarter of 2026 are not just another balance sheet but a way to understand the geopolitical map in real time. Or at least with “only” three weeks of latency. In figures: South Korea: 45% of ASML sales in Q1 2026 (up from 22% in the previous quarter). China: 19% (up from 36%). Taiwan: 23% (up from 13%). ASML’s total net sales in the quarter: €8.8 billion. Net profit: 2,760 million euros (+17% year-on-year). Sales forecast for 2026, revised upwards: between 36,000 and 40,000 million euros. The context. The United States has been building a sanctions architecture for years designed to disconnect China from access to advanced semiconductor technology. ASML, a Dutch company but with technology whose development has also involved American and British partners, stopped selling its EUV machines to China years ago. In 2023 added restrictions on more advanced DUV/UVP systems. What the first quarter data show is that this fence already has measurable effects on real sales flows. Between the lines. South Korea’s jump is not explained only by the Chinese fall. Samsung and SK Hynix They are in full race to build high-end memory capacity (the type of chip that powers AI data centers), and both companies have accelerated their orders for EUV machines. SK Hynix has committed nearly 12 trillion won (about 8.2 billion euros) in EUV lithography equipment for its Cheongju and Yongin factories. And Samsung, for its part, has placed a bulk order for approximately 20 EUV machines as part of a larger purchase of 70 systems for its P5 plant in Pyeongtaek. The underlying message is that the demand for AI is already sold in advance. According to ASML CEO Christophe Fouquet, customers in the memory segment have already exhausted their capacity for the entire year. Supply will not meet demand in the foreseeable future and prices continue to skyrocket. Main loser? China, without access to EUV, has been using older DUV systems for years and multiple exposure techniques to approach the 7 nanometer nodes. This translates into chips that are more expensive to produce and have lower yields. Companies like SMIC, ChangXin or Yangtze Memory Technologies operate under increasing financial pressure: the more exposures you need to compensate for the absence of EUV, the worse the production economics. The big question. Can China build its own ASML? There are prototypes in development and the ambition to achieve mass production of EUVs before 2030 is public and no one hides it. That doesn’t mean we can take it for granted: neither Nikon nor Canonwho have dominated lithography for decades, have managed to develop EUV systems. ASML is where it is because it spent years working to achieve it, and it also did so with a very well-coordinated ecosystem: Carl Zeiss optics, specialized laser technology, thousands of components from suppliers around the world… Replicating that from scratch, under sanctions, in less than five years, is a titanic task even for a country of 1.4 billion inhabitants and an excessive ambition. Yes, but. The restrictions, in fact, have not sunk China, but have forced it to adapt. SMIC produces 7 nanometer chips using alternative techniques, although at higher cost and on a smaller scale. The pace of state investment in semiconductors has not slowed down. And the fact that several engineers who have worked at ASML have ended up in Chinese projects has raised alarms on the other side of the Pacific. China has built its current position on a long-term mindset. The sanctions close the shortest path, but that does not mean that other paths do not exist. In Xataka | China prepares a 2nm AI chip to end NVIDIA’s dominance. Your problem is how you are going to manufacture it Featured image | ASML

2025 has been the year with the most sanctions in the history of the DGT

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The DGT has closed 2025 with a record number in Spain. According to official data from the General Statistical Yearbook 2025the number of complaints made has reached 6,106,354 sanctions. To put the figure in context, it is the highest obtained since records began. There is an upward trend that we have been experiencing for years, largely thanks to a greater dependence on surveillance technologies on our roads. Below these lines we tell you the details. Record numbers. For the first time since the historical series began in 1961, the volume of fines has broken the six million barrier. To put it in perspective, in just three years we have gone from exceeding five million in 2022 to this new ceiling in 2025. This is equivalent to an average of 16,730 daily fines, 12 penalties per minute or, if we continue with the calculations, one every 5.2 seconds. The Autonomous Communities that receive the most fines. The map of fines in Spain shows a clear geographical concentration. Andalusia leads the national ranking with 1,526,897 complaints, followed by the Comunitat Valenciana with 939,573 and the Community of Madrid with 721,465. On the opposite side, provinces such as Ourense with 40,904 or Palencia with 42,248 register the lowest volumes. The main reason for these figures continues to be excessive speed, responsible for two out of every three violations. Just like account the COPE, the cinemometer of the M-40 in Madrid, which is one of the most active radars in the entire countryaccumulated more than 150,000 complaints last year. The technological factor. The key to keeping the numbers rising is, of course, the modernization of surveillance equipment. According to point In the meantime, the DGT has invested more than one million euros in state-of-the-art mobile radars and “semi-mobile” trailer-type devices that operate automatically. This infrastructure is also supported by the Aerial Media Unit, whose helicopters and drones process approximately 25,000 violations annually, according to they explain from La Razón. Traffic defends that this deployment has been essential to reduce road mortality compared to past decades. Between the lines. This increase in fines is the result of a determined commitment to automation. From the Pyramid Consulting firm they point out that the direct connection of the devices with the León Automated Complaints Handling Center has boosted the capacity to process these fines. From the Unified Association of Civil Guards (AUGC), they denounce that this modernization coincides with a period of “serious personnel shortages and insufficient planning,” estimating that there are 1,000 fewer personnel than a decade ago. And now what. It does not seem that the strategy for the immediate future will change in any way. With a collection that exceeded 540 million euros in 2025, the DGT continues with the installation of more than a hundred new speed control points. On the other hand, driver defense platforms such as Dvuelta they question if this model has a true deterrent character. Cover image | DGT In Xataka | If you find a Cybertruck parked on a Spanish road, it is probably not a Cybertruck: it is a radar

Faced with the fear of a barrel of oil at $200, the US has made an unprecedented decision: remove sanctions on Russia

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After almost two weeks, the Iran war already has a great (and unexpected) beneficiary: the Kremlin. days after giving carte blanche to India to buy million barrels of Russian crude without fear of sanctions, yesterday Washington was one step further by lifting (partially) the sanctions imposed on the Russian oil industry after the invasion of Ukraine. With this, he hopes to alleviate the effects of the Iran war on the energy market and prevent Tehran’s threat from becoming a reality: that the barrel of Brent shoots to $200an all-time high. The question is… What will it mean for the war in Ukraine? What has happened? That the US has decided to pause the sanctions that penalize the purchase of Russian oil, a measure adopted four years ago and which seeks asphyxiate the Kremlin’s ability to finance its troops in Ukraine. The White House just published an order in which it gives the green light to the purchase of crude oil and oil products from Russia. Of course, with small print. The suspension of sanctions is temporary. It will only affect merchandise previously loaded on ships and (a priori) will be limited to one month: from March 12 to April 11. Click on the image to go to the tweet. Why do you do it? The task of announcing the measure has been the Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bressent, who a few hours ago insisted in the White House’s efforts to “promote stability” in the global energy market and above all “keep prices low” while the Iran war lasts. “To expand global supply reach, Treasury grants temporary authorization for countries to purchase Russian oil stranded at sea,” explains the high office. “This measure, which is limited in scope and short-term, applies only to oil that is already in transit.” In the same messageBressent insists that the rise in crude oil prices this week, coinciding with the escalation of tension in the Persian Gulf, is “temporary” and claims that “in the long term it will greatly benefit” the US economy. In recent days, Trump himself has tried to downplay the fluctuations in the Brent barrel. Recently he even stated that, being “the largest oil producer”, the US makes “a lot of money” when crude oil rises. Does context matter? A lot. In fact, the decision of the Treasury Department cannot be understood without taking into account several factors. The first, the escalation in the value of oil to which Bressent himself refers. The stock charts show that the cost of a barrel of Brent has skyrocketed in recent days: from marking just under 70 dollars in mid-February, it has gone above 90, with peaks that exceeded the barrier of the 100. Those fluctuations already affect to those who need to fill the car tank and threaten to go beyond transportation, infecting the shopping basket. What will happen now? The problem is not just how much oil has risen over the last two weeks. There is (very much) concern that the barrel of Brent will continue to become more expensive and, if so, by how much. The Iranian regime already has shown its ability to condition oil tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic maritime passage that channels 20% of international oil, and Tehran seems willing to use ‘black gold’ as a weapon of war. On Wednesday the regime of the ayatollahs threatened to the US (and the West) with a scenario in which the Brent barrel doubles its value and shoots up to $200, shattering the all-time high of 2008, when it reached $174.5. How will it affect Russia? That’s the other big question. The order just published by the US Treasury will allow Russia to market oil for a month without its customers risking sanctions, generating a flow of cash for the Kremlin. Bressent questions in any case the scope of that injection of funds. “It will not bring significant financial benefits to the Russian government, which derives most of its energy revenue from taxes levied at the point of extraction,” defend the secretary. Is it an exceptional measure? The truth is that it is not the first ‘balloon of oxygen’ that Trump has granted to the Russian oil industry since he began his military operation in Iran. It’s been a week now temporarily relaxed its sanctions policy so that India can buy Russian oil. The measure was approved with conditions very similar to those that Washington now extends to the rest of the countries: a 30-day suspension limited to crude oil already loaded on ships. It is not the only card that the White House has tried to reduce market tension. Another, adopted hand in hand of the International Energy Agency, has been to release millions of barrels of reserves. How much will it benefit Moscow? The great unknown. The measure approved by the US is temporary and has a limited scope, but it will probably allow the Kremlin to sell its oil without having to apply significant discounts to offset the possible sanctions that its buyers faced. Recently Financial Times I calculated that Russia is already winning up to 150 million of dollars in extra income every day through the sale of oil, a plus directly related to the conflict in Iran, the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the turbulence in the Gulf and the growing interest of India and China. But will it help the Kremlin? The situation of the Russian coffers is not particularly buoyant. Its public deficit accumulated during the first two months of the year almost reaches the objective set for the entire year and there are those who question that the extra injection it will receive over the next month thanks to oil will increase its room for maneuver in Ukraine. The reason: hydrocarbons represent only a part of the income (relevant, but not decisive) on which the Kremlin depends, which after four years of war has seen how the country’s military industry is conditioning its economy. Images | … Read more

so you can transport it to avoid sanctions

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Pets take up more and more space in our daily lives and, for many people, that also includes traveling by car. Taking the dog on an excursion, to a family member’s house or simply to the vet is part of the routine of thousands of drivers. The problem arises when this seemingly innocent gesture becomes a risk on the road and, furthermore, a possible traffic violation. In Mexico City, transporting an uncontrolled dog inside the vehicle can not only compromise driving safety, it can also be expensive. Why do we talk about fines. If in recent days there has been talk of fines for traveling with dogs in the car, it is not so much because a new rule has appeared, but because the amount in pesos changes over time. Many violations are calculated based on the Unit of Measurement and Update (UMA)an economic reference that is reviewed every year by the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI). For 2026, the daily UMA was set at 117.31 pesos and began to be applied on February 1. This adjustment automatically updates the cost of sanctions that were already provided for in the capital’s regulations. What the rules say about traveling with pets. The reference is in the article 38 of the Mexico City Traffic Regulations. This section regulates various behaviors that can interfere with driving, including the way animals are transported inside the vehicle. The text establishes that the person behind the wheel must not “hold, carry or place people or animals between their arms and legs.” According to the regulation, this situation can limit the driver’s movements and obstruct part of the visibility towards the road, two factors that increase the risk while driving. The fine and administrative penalty. The regulation also establishes the consequences for anyone who engages in this behavior. The penalty is calculated in a range of 10 to 20 times the current UMA, which with the value of 2026 is equivalent to approximately between 1,173 and 2,346 pesos. In addition to the payment, the violation implies three points less on the driver’s license. And, in the sections applicable to this case, the regulation also includes a point for vehicle registration, an additional penalty that should be taken into account. How to take the dog in the car without exposing yourself to a violation. The aforementioned official text does not prohibit traveling with pets, but it does require that they do not interfere with driving, so the objective is to prevent the animal from moving freely inside the vehicle. In Motorpasión México they explain A common option is to place it in the back seat with a breastplate or harness attached to the car. The idea is simple: keep the dog in a stable position and reduce the possibility of it ending up moving towards the handler’s area. The carrier alternative for traveling with pets. In addition to using a harness in the back seat, another recommended option is to use a pet carrier. Experts cited by UNAM Global point out These systems must be rigid, have good ventilation and have the appropriate size so that the animal can move with some comfort within its space. When the dog is used to this type of transport, the carrier can be an effective solution to keep it in a delimited area inside the car. In the end, the key is not whether or not the dog can travel in the car, but how it does so. As we can see, the Mexico City Traffic Regulations establish limits when their presence can interfere with driving. Following these recommendations helps to comply with this standard and reduces risks during the journey. Images | Blaire Harmon | Sandra Gabriel In Xataka | After 16 years, Mexico has managed to get a millionaire to pay his taxes. And they are going to use them to help young people

US sanctions are collapsing China’s factories. It’s bad news for the rest of the world

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The US has intensified in recent years its tariff policy against China. Under the shield of “national security reasons,” the Trump administration has attempted to isolate China from essential components to create cutting-edge technology. The play didn’t go too welland China is at its best moment of national production. So much so that the capacity of its factories is reaching the limit. There are those who warned. Lip-Bu Tan, CEO of Intel, warned at the beginning of February in his statements. He pointed out that the US blockade is only achieving the opposite effect, driving giants like Huawei to develop silently and accelerating the race for China to obtain the capacity to make three nanometer chips. SMIC confirmed it. He SMIC report corresponding to the fourth quarter of 2025 is a perfect summary of China’s efforts to one day end up leading the semiconductor race. China doesn’t just want to make chips for mobile phones: it wants to dominate the semiconductors that support AI, cars, telecommunications, industry, energy and defense: because whoever controls these chips controls technological power. The key data. That SMIC’s profits have grown by 39% in the last year is quite revealing, but that the capacity of its factories has risen to 93.5% is even more so. In other words, the Chinese company is practically at the limit of its production capacity, having to satisfy the demanding demands of both the government and local companies. How does this affect me?. Among the key sectors that China wants to lead is AI. And this one needs many, many chips. So much so that SMIC has warned that the demand for them is being so enormous that the rest of the consumer electronics orders are being compromised. This ends up translating into delays in supply, price increases and something that we have been warning about for months: basic components such as RAM, SSD memories and so on. They are going to be more expensive than ever. Without help from anyone. China, without access to ASML’s most advanced machines, is achieving alternative routes for your manufacturing processes. Although some of its manufacturers are still in collaboration with giants like TSMC (case of Xiaomi with “its” XRing 01 chip, manufactured by TSCM in 3nm), the plan is to be completely self-sufficient. Something that they will end up achieving, sooner or later. In Xataka |

The DGT sold us a “reasonable period without sanctions” for the V-16 beacons. The fines are already coming

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Unwritten agreements have a problem: nothing is written. It seems silly but it is more than obvious. When there is talk of a “reasonable period” or “being flexible” but nothing is signed, the truth is that there are reasons to be suspicious. Because nothing and no one prevents breaking that supposed agreement with which all parties agree. Or if not, tell those who have been fined for not having the V-16 beacons. They are already fining. This is what they assure from Pyramid Consulting. This consultancy, specialized in appealing traffic fines, already indicates that its offices have received a penalty because a driver did not have the V-16 light to signal a dangerous situation. The penalty is 80 euros, as we already had in Xatakaand it reads that the reason for the sanction is “not having the corresponding V-16 regulatory sign installed on the vehicle.” The penalty was imposed on January 6, Three Kings’ Day, and the gift will be a financial penalty of 40 euros if the driver accepts prompt payment. “A reasonable period”. Penalizing a driver on January 6, 2026 for not having a V-16 beacon raises blisters among drivers. And Fernando Grande-Marlaska, Minister of the Interior, and Pere Navarro, director of the DGT, were faced with a pool full of contradictions and decided to jump into it headlong. In December 2025, faced with the prospect that drivers were not going to have the V-16 beacon on time, the DGT already announced that there would be no extensions in the application of the measure because, in their words, there would be no point in delaying it to the summer of 2026 since the situation would be exactly the same. Of course, they indicated that they had considered delaying it. However, that same month of December, the director of the DGT himself indicated that agents “will be flexible” so fines were not expected, at least, in the first days. They talked about “consolidating this issue” without having to deal with a barrage of fines. On January 8, Grande-Marlaska defended that the beacon was not tax collection, that “information would take precedence over the sanction” and that fines would not be imposed. a “reasonable” period of time. By then, Pyramid Consulting’s client had already been sanctioned. They think they are right. From the consultancy they assure that they are going to appeal the fine. The reasons they allege are that articles 9 and 103 of the Spanish Constitution specify that the Administration must guarantee the legal security of citizens. And they point out that the Administration’s actions must comply with and be: Foreseeable Transparent Consistent Adjusted to good faith They assure that Grande-Marlaska’s statements, in which it was suggested that the agents would not sanction “in a reasonable period of time,” invalidates the sanction and generates legal uncertainty for the citizen since a safeguard message is sent that in the end has not been fulfilled. The contradictions. The problem here is that those responsible for the Ministry of the Interior and the DGT sent messages that contradicted what is stated in the law. Both assured that there would be no fine for not having the beacon and not using it but, at the same time, they neither offered a specific time period nor was any type of order approved in which this was reflected. This left it up to the agents how to act. And if they considered that a car was not correctly signaling its position, there were sufficient reasons to sanction it, according to the approved regulations. And although the DGT’s public message was in the direction of not fining, the agents themselves have recognized that they have no order to act in this way. Photo | DGT and Pyramid Consulting In Xataka | The V-16 beacon has many problems: the manufacturer turning off its servers and leaving you offline is not one of them

Russia had managed to manufacture drones and missiles despite the sanctions. So selling Zara clothes was a matter of time

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In recent months, a strange wave of western products has begun to reappear in places where, on paper, it is already they shouldn’t exist. Between geopolitical changes, forced business exits and an increasingly opaque market, certain brands have unexpectedly become visible again, fueling rumors, theories about how they are getting there and who is really pulling the strings of their distribution towards Moscow. Now a giant from Spain has (re)appeared: Inditex. A market that does not close completely. After announcing the end of operations in Russia a few days after the invasion of Ukraine, Inditex left behind its second largest market and sold its business in the country. However, more than two years latergarments with official labels from brands such as Zara, Bershka, Oysho, Stradivarius or Massimo Dutti have once again appeared on the shelves of the Russian channel Tvoenow renamed Tvoe n Ko, which boasts a “constantly updated” selection on social networks and presents the collections as almost clandestine finds. The pieces, which match models from previous seasons and carry prices in euros, are now sold in at least 19 stores Russian companies without there being (according to the official version offered) any contractual relationship between the Spanish company and the local distributor. In fact, they occur two months after the executive director of Inditex, Óscar García Maceiras, will declare to the Financial Times that the conditions “were not met” for his return to Russia. The engineering of the Russian gray market. I was counting a few hours ago the FT that the mechanism that allows the reappearance of these garments is based on the system of “parallel imports” established by Moscow to circumvent the massive departures of Western brands. In this scheme operates Disco Club LLCa Russian company that has recorded 18 statements in accordance, citing Inditex as supplier and presenting itself as its “authorized representative”, despite the fact that Inditex flatly denies having granted such permission. The garments come partly from inventories originally destined for various EU countries and partly from Chinese factories, according to labels and documents customs, in a circuit that takes advantage of legal loopholes and the Kremlin’s lack of inhibition to give formal coverage to a trade that would previously have been considered smuggling. The denial. For its part, Tvoe assures that it does not have direct agreements with Inditex and hides behind confidentiality agreements so as not to detail its suppliers, while Disco Club insist in which he only performed a “punctual technical service.” Burkhard Binder, the businessman linked to the founding of the company and based in Dubai, is disassociating himself from current operations. Inditex, known for its tight control of inventory, distribution and franchises, completely reject any link: he claims not to have authorized Disco Club or any Russian entity to act on his behalf and avoids commenting on how his products arrive in the country since he withdrew. Matter of time. we have been counting: the ability of the Russian economy to adapt in the midst of war has shown that international restrictions, no matter how strict, always find cracks. A country that has rebuilt chains complex supply chains to produce drones, precision ammunition or long-range missiles, despite technological embargoes and industrial vetoes, would not have difficulties reopening the door to much more “simpler” products, such as Western fashion clothing. In that context, the reappearance of garments of Zara in Russian stores is not so much surprising as confirming a trend: Moscow has perfected an ecosystem of parallel imports capable of circumventing almost any blockade, from military components even t-shirts and dresses from past seasons, turning the impossible into routine and the forbidden into a merely logistical problem. Russia, a laboratory of consumption in times of sanctions. The appearance of Zara products in Russia despite the exit from the company illustrates the magnitude of the gray market that Moscow has made official since 2022: an ecosystem that allows consumers to access Western brands through private intermediaries and indirect routes, without participation of the original companies. In this context, the reappearance of the Spanish firm in the Russian commercial landscape is not due to a business return, but rather to a state-run mechanism. commercial evasion that turns its garments into parallel import merchandise. If you like, the phenomenon also reveals the extent to which Russia has rebuilt its global consumption through third countries and front companies, and how even the strictest groups in controlling its supply chain cannot prevent its products from reappearing in a market from which they tried to leave definitely. Image | Pexels In Xataka | Ukraine has opened the Russian ballistic missile that has devastated its cities. Your surprise is a condemnation: your main supplier is untouchable In Xataka | Zara has been selling clothes for years. Now he aspires to sell something more difficult: prestige

China has shielded its space station against embargoes and sanctions. The key is how it has built it

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When Yang Liwei became The first Chinese astronaut in 2003The United States and Russia – bypassing the advances of the former Soviet Union – already accumulated decades of experience and more than fifty manned missions. In just over twenty years, that gap has been reduced by leaps and bounds. Of a modest debut, China has become humans to space, Mars And finally, To raise your own space station. A project that points to self -sufficiency with its own technology In Beijing they do not hesitate to show off technological independence. Yang Hong, chief engineer of the space station system, summed it up in June this year: “The central technologies of the Chinese Space Station have intellectual property totally independentand all its components are of national manufacture. ” The statement is ambitious: an orbital laboratory raised without resorting to foreign licenses, with all its critical systems designed and produced in China. To understand how China has come to raise its own space station, it is convenient to go back to 2011. That year, the US Congress approved the call Wolf amendment, a provision that prevents NASA and some federal offices use funds to cooperate bilaterally with Chinese entities in spatial matters, except express authorization from Congress and Certification of the FBI. This includes the exchange of technology, data or training, and in practice has blocked any Chinese access route to the International Space Station through NASA. The measure was officially justified for security reasons and concerns about sensitive technology transfer. Analysts like Makena Youngfrom the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), argue that the exclusion imposed by the Wolf amendment “has encouraged China to Accelerate your space programscreating a serious competitor for American leadership in this key scanner of exploration ” Everything indicates that this led Beijing to reinforce its long-term plans and redefine its strategy: move towards a manned program with greater independence, with Tiangong-1 and Tiangong-2 as test laboratories before the current station. Now, is there inheritance of previous designs? Yes, and it is not a secret. But one thing is the historical lineage and another, the current dependence. The key is in critical blocks, presumably energy, attitude control, life support, navigationcommunications, computation and software. If those links are under national control, the self -sufficiency narrative gains strength, which means that there are no weak points that a rival country can take advantage of. In operations, there have been no public signs of external dependence: crew rotations and the resupplies have been fulfilled. But there enters the nuance: outside the official story, there are no independent verifications, so it is convenient to avoid absolute, despite the solid signals of autonomy. If we see this from a broader perspective we can discover that the US vetoes They have promoted the development of more advanced national chipsimprovements in manufacturing nodes, An impulse in electric mobility. External barriers have not stopped Beijing: they have been, rather, A strategic catalyst. Images | CMS In Xataka | The state of the ISS is so alarming that the United States and Russia have sat at the table for the first time in eight years In Xataka | It was not an extraterrestrial ship, but not a giant kite. We were totally wrong about 3i/Atlas

Nvidia cannot sell her most powerful chips to China for sanctions. So you have found a plan B: Risc-V

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Nvidia has announced that Its CUDA platform will be compatible with RISC-V processors. He has done so during the Risc-V Summit in China and the chosen place is not accidental: this announcement clearly points to the Chinese market. For the first time, the technology that allows applications to communicate with the NVIDIA GPUs will be extended beyond ARM and X86, towards an open source architecture. Why is it important. CUDA It is the software that operates the Nvidia’s ecosystem. Without a CUDA, the GPU would lose much of their parallel calculation apacities. That Nvidia opens this technology to RISC-V It means that processors based on this open architecture can now serve as the main CPU in NVIDIA GPU systems. The background. The announcement, in addition to making in China, comes while China is accelerating its efforts to reduce its dependence of western processors. Nvidia can’t sell your most powerful models GB200 and GB300 to China for US sanctions, so in this way finds a way to maintain relevant Cuda in the Chinese market. Between the lines. There is a lot of geopolitical strategy in this decision: NVIDIA has been integrating RISC-V nuclei for years into its own GPU for low-level control tasks. Now it makes the jump to support RISC-V as the main processor. And that responds to a reality: if China is going to develop its own processors using open architectures, Nvidia wants to be there from the beginning. In detail. The configuration shown by NVIDIA shows a heterogeneous system: The GPU handles parallel loads. The RISC-V processor executes the CUDA controllers and the application logic. And a DPU manages network tasks. This architecture allows you to orchestrate GPU computations completely within the CUDA environment, something impossible so far with RISC-V. Deepen. Historically, Nvidia has behaved Cuda to each important architecture: X86, ARM, PowerPC and even Sparc de Sun. The company understands that it must be present from the first day on any platform that can take off in the business sector. With a value already exceeding 4 billion dollarsNvidia can afford to bet on all promising architectures. And now the movement positions RISC-V as a viable alternative for future designs of AI processors and high performance computing. If the stars align, other manufacturers could follow the example of Nvidia. And that would accelerate the adoption of RISC-V in data centers beyond China. Outstanding image | Wikimedia Commons In Xataka | On his way to the authentic quantum supremacy, China has set an objective: a “real” quantum computer before 2030

China sanctions are opening the door for Huawei to define the new global standards

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For Nvidia losing the Chinese market would be “a huge loss.” We do not say it; Jensen Huang assures itthe general director of this American company. The future of this company in China is objectively uncertain. US sanctions They do not stop hardeningand little by little they are cutting the range of products that Nvidia can deliver to their Chinese customers despite the attempts of the latter To get out of prohibitions. There is a lot of money at stake. During the last fiscal year, which expired on January 26, 2025, China represented approximately 13% of NVIDIA’s total income with a figure of about 17,000 million dollars. In practice, the country led by Xi Jinping is the third best client of this company only behind the US and Taiwan. However, there is only money at stake; On the table there is also the possibility that Huawei manages to define global standards to the detriment of Nvidia technologies. CUDA domain is in danger “We are at a turning point. The United States must decide whether it will continue leading the development and global implementation of artificial intelligence (AI) or if it is going to go back and retreat (…) America cannot lead to slow down. If we go back others will occupy the space. And the global ecosystem of the AI ​​will fragment technologically, economically and ideologically, has declared Jensen Huang before US legislators. For Nvidia it is a problem not being able to sell its GPUs to its Chinese clients, but it is an even greater problem that CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture) end up losing your current domain In the AI ​​industry. And this technology has an essential role in the Nvidia business. Most artificial intelligence projects that are currently being developed are implemented on CUDA. Underestimating Huawei’s ability to correct Cann’s deficiencies would be a serious mistake This technology brings together the compiler and development tools used by programmers to develop their software for NVIDIA GPUs, and replace it with another option in the projects that are already underway it is a problem. Huawei, who aspires to an important portion From this market in China, it has Cann (Compute Architecture for Neural Networks), which is its alternative to CUDA, but for the moment the latter dominates the market. Cann has received criticism because, apparently, it is to use it, and also because its performance is unstable, documentation is insufficient and has reliability problems. However, underestimate Huawei’s ability When correcting these shortcomings it would be a serious mistake. In fact, this Chinese company has admitted the existence of these problems And he has confirmed that he is working to solve them. However, not only Huawei threatens Nvidia’s leadership position. Cann is not the only country’s asset governed by Xi Jinping. Moore Threads It is one of the Chinese companies that are dedicated to the production of hardware for which companies aligned with the interests of the US and its allies cannot sell software or advanced equipment. Although it is very young (it was founded in 2020) it has something very important in its favor: its founder is Zhang Jianzhong, former general manager of the Nvidia subsidiary in China, so it is evident that he knows well what he has in hand. Moore Threads has developed several GPU for AI applications that, on paper, rival some of the advanced solutions that have placed in the Nvidia, AMD or Huawei market. However, this company has something else: a software package with which it pursues Finally break the domain of CUDA. He calls it MUSEis compatible with the range of MTT cards and incorporates a compiler, execution libraries, specialized libraries and code purification tools. On paper its most attractive capacity for China is that it allows to reuse the code written in CUDA, transferring it so that it can be executed on the cards for Moore Threads. Image | Nvidia | Huawei More information | Tom’s hardware In Xataka | AI is the best thing that is happening to nuclear fusion. It is already accelerating the construction of Iter

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